16 發光的城市 A R O U N D T O W N FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2008 • TAIPEI TIMES

Too much of a good thing Hallam Foe tries to be too many different kinds of movie all at once and comes apart under the strain

By Ian Bartholomew Staff Reporter

Director Yang Ya-che’s feature Child actors Li Kuan-i and Pan Chin-yu play debut is a children’s film that will lovable troublemakers in Orz Boyz. Above, Jamie Bell as Hallam Foe, watching and waiting. Below, with Sophia Myles, as Kate Breck. Photos: ifilm give many more serious local Photo: 1 Production Film productions a run for their money here are so many good things about Hallam Foe that the T feeling of dissatisfaction one feels on leaving the cinema By Ho Yi is particularly perplexing. Staff reporter First and foremost in Hallam Foe’s appeal is Jamie Bell, last seen in a leading role as a 13-year-old in Billy Elliot. Since then there have been minor parts in King Kong (2005) and Jumper (2008), about which the less said the better. In Hallam Foe he has a worthwhile role, and shows himself to have survived his stint as a child actor and carried his talent into maturity. He plays the title character, the sensitive son of a wealthy architect who has become somewhat unhinged Kids’ pranks spark by his mother’s death. He develops a rather unsavory skill as a picker of locks and Peeping Tom, goes on to suspect his father’s new wife of murder and then stalks and eventually seduces a woman he sees on a Glasgow street because she looks like his mother. To some extent, it is Bell’s success in realizing the charac- ter of Hallam Foe and his ability to bring his psychosis to life that is the undoing of this film. The problem is that Hallam is just not a very nice boy, and when, midway through the film, director David Mackenzie decides to change tack, swerving laughs and tears drunkenly for psychological thriller to romantic comedy, the mood is just way out of kilter. Mackenzie’s attempt to turn Hallam’s paranoia against his stepmother and his systematic rz Boyz (囧男孩), a feature debut i), are inseparable. Together they tease grandmother and that No. 1 lives in a shack Orz Boyz (囧男孩) proves that with a by award-winning playwright, girls, play pranks on classmates, summon on a bend of the Tamsui River with his well-written story and strong cast, local prying into the life of a young woman to fulfill ill-defined novelist and director Yang Ya-che imaginary ghosts, and more. Their teacher, mentally disturbed father. productions can be more attractive than Oedipal longings into something of a lark comes off as more O queasy than quirky. (楊雅吉吉), tackles a genre not much favored unable to cope, sends them to the library By alternating the boys’ lives with Hollywood blockbusters, for here are in Taiwanese cinema — children’s film. to repair books every day. Instead of fixing charming animation sequences inspired familiar scenes of traditional markets, This change of direction wrong-foots Bell and sends Sophia Myles, who plays Kate Breck, the object of Hallam’s With witty dialogue, an affectionate books, the more literate No. 1 becomes a by Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince street life and school life, grandparent infatuation, reeling, the underpinnings of her character mood and two untutored child actors, his great storyteller, reading stories to his one- and the Brothers Grimm’s Pied Piper of figures and childhood memories that knocked out from under her. Myles conveys a lovely combi- effort is a triumph that can be enjoyed by man audience, No. 2. Their imaginations Hamelin, Yang ingeniously leaves room for speak directly to a local audience. children and adults alike. run wild, allowing the two to escape from the audience to reflect and reminisce on nation of toughness and vulnerability in the first half of the The film tells a bittersweet tale their troubled home lives. fragments of their own memories. Animator film, but both these qualities are stretched to breaking point about two best friends in elementary The friends decide to save money to Fish’s contribution to the film is worth a when stalker turns lover after a rude uncovering of Hallam’s school. Branded as the school’s biggest go to a water park together. The spiral special mention for his work in realizing unsavory pastime of watching Kate her in her bedroom troublemakers, the two friends, Liar No. waterslide at the park, as they believe, a dreamy Taiwanese cityscape lit by neon through the skylight. This plays off against a subplot, never 2 (played by Pan Chin-yu) and older is a portal to Oz, a wonderland where signs and filled with concrete buildings, Orz Boyz (囧男孩) quite fully realized between Hallam and Kate’s occasional classmate Liar No. 1 (played by Li Kuan- children turn instantly into adults and live above which the Happy Prince stands. lover, Alasdair. Hallam tries to blackmail Alasdair, who sets happily ever after. But it is the two child actors who are the DIRECTED BY: Yang Ya-che (楊雅吉�吉) up a scenario in which Hallam, in his role as Peeping Tom, is Competently scripted and directed, the real stars of the show and give the film its made to watch him have sex with Kate. Mid-coitus, Alasdair film doesn’t rely on expensive CGI effects special glow. Though neither has been for- STARRING: Li Kuan-i (李冠毅) as Liar No. 1, looks up to the skylight behind which he knows Hallam is to recreate the fantastic world of childhood. mally trained in acting, they are as natural Pan Chin-yu (潘親御) as Liar No. 2, Mei Fang hiding and gives him the finger. Instead, the children’s whimsical cosmos is as the most experienced veterans and share (梅芳) as grandmother These dark themes of sexual need and exploitation drive brought to life through innocent escapades amazing onscreen chemistry. Comedians by the film along at a steady pace and are given context by a and imaginative games. Hints are given nature, they create some of the film’s most Language: In Mandarin and Taiwanese couple of lovely cameos by Maurice Roeves and Ewen Brem- of the boys’ difficult family situations to hilarious moments with veteran actress Mei with English and Chinese subtitles ner as less-than-lovable below-stairs types in the hotel at 梅芳 which Hallam works. Claire Forlani is wonderful as Hallam’s build up psychological depth. The audience Fang ( ), whose grandmother character RUNNING TIME: 110 MINUTES gradually learns that No. 2 and his baby is arguably the most lovable adult role seen stepmother, full of dignity but not above turning vicious when cousin are being raised by their elderly on the big screen in years. her position is threatened — there is a hint, if nothing more, TAIWAN RELEASE: TODAY that she would be capable of murder. One gets the idea that Mackenzie wants to make a neat little knot from the two strands of Hallam’s relationships with Kate and his stepmother, but instead these two strands slip through his hands and wander off in separate directions. To solve the problem, Mackenzie opts for the easy payoff of a Unsolved equations romantic comedy, and even this is handled with delicacy, but by this point the film is going in too many directions at once. ‘’ casts a sceptical eye on grand propositions about remembering the past

By Ian Bartholomew But in fact, the elderly von Sydow Staff Reporter manages a wonderful evocation of The accepted wisdom is that those a man close to sainthood, a man who forget history are condemned who could conceivably put himself Hallam Foe to repeat it. Emotional Arithmetic Emotional through years of torture in con- does the sums on this proposition centration camps and the gulag to DIRECTED BY: David Mackenzie and suggests that memory is not Arithmetic ensure the safety of two children. necessarily an unadulterated The tragedy is that Melanie’s undy- STARRING: Jamie Bell (Hallam Foe), Sophia Myles DIRECTED BY: Paolo Barzman good. As its point of departure, ing gratitude and total commitment (Kate Breck), Ciaran Hinds (Julius Foe), Maurice Roeves (Raymond), Ewen Bremner (Andy), Claire it takes the uneasy reunion of STARRING: Gabriel Byrne to Brodski’s belief at Forlani (Verity Foe) three survivors from Drancy, a (Christopher Lewis), Roy Dupuis the time that nothing transit camp in Vichy France for (Benjamin Winters), Dakota Goyo should be forgotten has RUNNING TIME: 95 MINUTES Jews bound for Auschwitz. They (Timmy Winters), Christopher driven her to the edge meet in the idyllic surroundings Plummer (David Winters), Susan of madness, an obses- TAIWAN RELEASE: TODAY of rural , full of red maple, Sarandon (Melanie Lansing Winters), sive keeper of informa- glistening lakes and snow-capped (Jakob Bronski) mance. Director Paolo Brazman is , right tion about the victims mountains, and into this Eden they unfortunately unwilling to let these counts the cost of her from various persecu- RUNNING TIME: 99 MINUTES bring their memories, their hurt fine actors simply get on with telling friendship with the el- tions. “We have 6,000 and their love, which were formed their story through words, looks and Jews living in our attic,” TAIWAN RELEASE: TODAY derly Max von Sydow, in the dark days of the Holocaust. eloquent silences, and feels that dra- above. Plummer’s character Emotional Arithmetic is an in the camp. She has invited the matic themes need to be underlined PhotoS: Bestmovie blurts out at one point. intimate drawing-room drama that aging poet Jakob Bronski (Max von with flashbacks to fill in the back- The mood is anti- wants to make some big points Sydow) to her lakeside lodge which story, and somewhat heavy-handed disingenuously heroic, skeptical, about how we should remember she shares with her husband David imagery, such as rain washing away — and with a always with one eye the past, but also about how we (). Bronski the words of a diary kept by Melanie bitter irony directed at herself raised about any broad statement must embrace the present. This brings along Christopher Lewis of her days in Drancy. But these — says that they “met at camp.” of truth, and while the scale of rather didactic quality brings to (Gabriel Byrne), Melanie’s child- are small hiccups, and Emotional Plummer puts in a lovely perfor- the production is more like a mind the plays of J.B. Priestly or hood friend from Drancy, whose Arithmetic can be enjoyed for some mance as the older husband who television drama than a feature Terence Rattigan, which are very attachment — love is too unam- fine moments of dialog and the over- lives in a state of constant frustra- film, it is a thoughtful work that much out of fashion these days. biguous a word for the complex all mood of civilized malaise that the tion with his wife’s memories. dares raise occasional challenges A wonderful cast is headed relationship — to Melanie remains characters try to keep under control, “Being a victim of some terrible to the cut-and-dried verdicts of by Susan Sarandon, who plays unaffected by years of separation. if not always effectively. apocalyptic event does not make history. After all, whatever has Melanie Lansing Winters, a woman The cast alone is worth the price Approached by an officious you a saint,” he says, venting his gone before, life still has to go on, still suffering from depression as of admission, for each puts in a neighbor to introduce her frustration over playing host to and those who did not suffer still the result of her childhood ordeal magnificent if understated perfor- friend Christopher, Melanie this Holocaust survivors club. need to be loved and cared for.